• Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Monday, October 1, 2007 11 AM

Microsoft says it will offer a free, Web-based service that works with Word, Excel and PowerPoint to let people store and access files online. The service, dubbed Office Live Workspace, also will let users collaborate on documents remotely over the Internet.

Editing and creating documents will still take place on the PC desktop, requiring a regular version of the Microsoft Office software. The file can then be uploaded to the Web, with subsequent changes synchronized from the desktop to the online copy. By focusing just on Web-based document storage and collaboration, Microsoft is combating one of the main reasons people use Google's online service, says David Smith, an analyst with the Gartner research firm.

Microsoft will start accepting pre-registrations today for the preliminary version of Office Live Workspace, but it declines to give a more precise date for public availability.

Read the whole story at Seattle Post-Intelligencer »